


Leaving Things Unsaid

by deandratb



Series: Affairs of State [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3218798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First in a multi-ship "deleted scenes" series. [Stories in this series are not directly connected, they all simply share the trait of fitting between canon rather than changing it.] Imagines that Josh & Donna had a fling pre-Season 1 that infiltrated all the inappropriate banter that came after. Title shared with my J/D fanmix and taken from The Fray's "Unsaid."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lean In Close and Don't Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one: substance-free, mildly sexy ficlet set the same day Donna joins the Bartlet For America campaign. Title and much inspiration borrowed from Neon Trees "Foolish Behavior." Originally written as a one-shot.
> 
> P.S. I don't own The West Wing. If I did, I'd be insufferable and the show would last forever. I wrote this for love, not money. Please don't sue me.

This was so, so stupid.

His hands were everywhere, and she was trying--but failing--to be quiet. It was his hotel room, and they had thin walls between them and the others. She would regret this tomorrow.

Would he regret this tomorrow?

"You work for me," he murmured in a moment of clarity. She was already shirtless, rolling her eyes at him. He was the one who started it, she thought, staring at her from across the office like he couldn't look away. Like he'd been waiting for her.

He was the one who invited her to join them for drinks. She felt awkward. She was new. But they were all so welcoming, and she wasn't the one who got handsy after two beers and needed help getting back upstairs. His friends had made sympathetic faces in her direction, as if they could already tell she would feel responsible for him. Would take him on, because he needed her, even if she couldn't explain why this was so clear on the very first day. She couldn't explain why it was so appealing, either.

"Only technically," she replied, brought back to the moment by his teeth on her neck. Gently, because he was cautious. "I haven't even gotten on payroll yet."

"Good point." He smiled at her as they moved to the bed, suddenly direct as he ran a hand up her calf. "You have the longest legs I think I've ever seen."

"Please don't say I must have been a dancer. That's such a terrible line."

"Well, now I won't."

She tugged him up towards her, tangled her fingers in his hair. How would she be able to work beside him now, after this? It didn't mean anything, really. Nothing more than the fact that they were both a little drunk, and really curious. But it had to change things.

Didn't it?

"So were you athletic then?" he asked suddenly as they were shifting positions. "You really do have a certain kind of...grace."

"No, not really athletic," she replied, arching a little so he could tug down her slacks. They didn't fit quite right, a rushed purchase right after she was hired. "I did twelve years of dance."

He chuckled into her collarbone, sending shivers all the way down to her toes. "So you were a dancer."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make the line any less lame."

"It's not a line if it's true," he argued as she tossed his shirt to the floor. She was already unbuttoning his jeans when it landed.

"It is, actually, because you can't know if it's true until you try it, which is what makes it a line. I--" The rest of her words caught in her throat as he slid his hands up her stomach, toward the front-clasp of her bra.

"You're beautiful," he said quietly, and she rolled her eyes again at the man who had hired her and seduced her on the same day.

"Please, just tell me you're not completely drunk. I can't be the only one who remembers this in the morning. Talk about awkward."

He leaned into her, until they were almost nose to nose, and smiled. It was a slow smile, building until it reached pure wickedness. It surprised her. "I'm not drunk at all," he replied. 

His voice was steady, and she met his gaze until she found what she was looking for. There it was, that "where have you been all my life?" look. Like a deer caught in headlights and happy about it.

She realized he was right. He wasn't drunk, just stupid, like her. For the first time, she closed the distance to meet his lips with hers, and decided to worry about it tomorrow.


	2. The Words, They're Everything and Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after, immediately following _Lean In Close and Don't Let Go_. Coffee, conversation, and a very important loophole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Sam, who asked for more and inspired a series. Chapter title taken from Vienna Teng's "Recessional."
> 
> P.S. I don't own The West Wing. If I did, I'd be insufferable and the show would last forever. I wrote this for love, not money. Please don't sue me.

When she woke up the next morning, Josh was already awake and dressing cautiously on his side of the bed. 

"It's alright," Donna told him blearily. "I'm up."

"Sorry," he replied, turning around. "I tried to be careful."

"It's okay, Josh." She tried to add reassurance to her smile. In the sober morning light he seemed awkward in his own skin again. She might have worried that it had something to do with her, except that he'd been like that with his friends at the bar too. After one day she already knew that it was just his nature; he wore his anxiety like a hand-me-down suit, leaving him permanently tense and rumpled. 

_It was pretty cute, actually._

He rose from the bed to make coffee. Buttoning her blouse, Donna was barely able to hear him over the burbling of the coffeemaker and the aging radiator's hiss when he spoke.

"It can't happen again," Josh said. Her fingers froze on the second button. All of her froze at that moment, actually. She wasn't sure she could feel her toes anymore.

"I know," she replied. He glanced over his shoulder and frowned at her back. Without being able to see her face, he worried that maybe he'd hurt her feelings. She had to know it would be inappropriate, right? He wasn't being unreasonable.

Finally he left the coffee brewing and crossed the room to face her. She seemed fine, but he didn't know what kind of poker face she possessed. 

As Donna tugged her slacks on, she tilted her face up to his curiously. "What?"

"Nothing." Josh looked down at the carpet, then away over her left shoulder. He was practically vibrating with nerves, so she took pity on him.

"Come on, Josh. It's not like I thought this was anything more than what it was."

"Okay," he agreed, his tone wary. "So, when we leave this room..."

"When we leave this room, we go back to work. Y'know, getting a new leader of the free world elected? I'll answer the phones and file papers, and you'll..." She trailed off, staring at him. "I don't actually know what it is you do right now. You'll go back to making jokes and swaggering around the office."

"I don't swagger!"

"One, yes you do. And two, funny how you object to that part and not my assessment of your job performance."

Josh shrugged. "I'm a mystery."

"Maybe to some," Donna said with a smile, "but I figured you out before we even met."

"What, do you have special powers now?"

"Special powers of reading? Sure." She smirked. "I was the one organizing your desk for two hours before you hired me, remember? You have very telling penmanship."

"I barely have penmanship," he argued.

"Exactly." Smoothing a hand down her hair, Donna swallowed a yawn. "Can I borrow your toothbrush?"

"Sure." He sat on the bed in the spot she had vacated and wondered why her casual acceptance bothered him so much.

"You don't think it'll be weird?" He called out to her from where he sat.

"No," came the muffled reply. "I'm already using it."

"Not my toothbrush, the--" He stopped shouting when she reappeared. "The fact that this happened, and now we'll be around each other all the time. You left the water running," he added as she approached him.

"It doesn't have to be weird if we don't let it be," she told him seriously. "It might even help."

"How?"

"I'm your assistant," she reminded him. "And it's a crazy campaign. You might need me to fetch your clothes or order your food or, I don't know, style your hair."

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm never going to need you for that last one."

"Well, I couldn't think of a third thing. My point is, it's close quarters around here and it'll certainly save time and trouble if you're comfortable changing in front of me or letting me into your room."

"You're right," he mused. "You should also probably know how I take my coffee. Since I just brewed a pot, how about you practice now, actually? Cream, no sugar." His best attempt at a winning smile seemed to have no effect on her.

"I'm not going to fetch your coffee, Josh." She swatted him lightly on the ear.

"But that's like job number one of assistanting." 

"In the 1950s, maybe," she countered. "But it's 1998 and that particular duty is no longer in the Assistant's handbook. Ask your girlfriends to bring you coffee."

"My future hypothetical girlfriends?"

"Yep." Donna poured her own coffee and sipped it with a smile, watching as he pouted and doctored his own.

"Not even on special occasions?" 

"Never."

"What if there's a National Coffee Day? C'mon, you'd have to bring me coffee on National Coffee Day."

She eyed him suspiciously. "There's already a National Coffee Day, isn't there? This is a trick question."

Josh raised his hands in defense. "Not that I'm aware of. There is not. But when Governor Bartlet becomes President Barlet, maybe he'll proclaim one."

He raised his eyebrows at her, looking as hopeful as a little boy on Christmas Eve, and she relented.

"Fine. If someday you proclaim a National Coffee Day, I will bring you coffee in honor of the holiday."

Frowning, he returned to sitting on the bed. "I won't be able to proclaim anything, Donna. Only Presidents can..." He trailed off, narrowing his eyes in acknowledgement. "I see what you did there."

"Mm-hmm." She busied herself with tossing out the used creamer cups while he thought it over. 

"So you're saying that the only way you'll ever bring me coffee, even though you're my assistant, is if I become the President of the United States and then create a coffee holiday."

"That's right."

"But if I become President, I'll have a handful of other staff who could bring me coffee whenever I wanted."

"So?" She took the chair across the room from where he sat, watching his face.

"So...never. You're saying you'll never bring me coffee."

"Now you're getting it."

"Well...okay."

Josh's brow furrowed in confusion as she began removing her blouse again. When she shimmied back out of her slacks, he had to close his mouth and swallow before speaking.

"What...what's happening now?"

Her smile was a beguiling cross between bashful and seductive. "What do you want to happen now?"

Shaking his head, he tried to remember the problem with this scenario. "We agreed--"

Donna cut him off, rising from her seat to cross to him. "We agreed that we need to have a strictly professional relationship as soon as we leave this room. Have we left the room yet?"

His grin spread slowly, changing the contours of his face. "A loophole. I like it."

She reached up to smooth her hand across his forehead. "I like the crease you get right here when I confuse you."

"Well, that's good," he replied, rolling his eyes as he led the way back to the rumpled hotel bed. "Because I think you're going to be seeing it a lot."

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd. Any errors are mine.


End file.
